Creating art has always been the goal for the Chinese jewelry maker Feng Ji. Not content to design and assemble jewelry in a traditional or commercial way for her Feng J brand, she prides herself on honing new techniques and approaching jewelry design from an artistic standpoint.
All of that has led her to TEFAF Maastricht, the global art fair scheduled in the Netherlands for March 15-20, where she will be one of the first artists from mainland China to exhibit there and one of several jewelry designers among the 271 art dealers and galleries showing this year.
“I want to show more of my own works, and I want to see more works from other artists,” Ms. Feng said in a recent video interview from her Paris atelier. “I’m not a professional collector, but I do collect some artwork. I want to know more than just jewelry.”
She, along with eight other exhibitors, are to be part of Showcase, a section of the fair devoted to emerging artists from a range of disciplines. And she plans to display, in total, nine pieces of new jewelry, priced from $200,000 to $800,000.
Ms. Feng, 39, has gained attention over the last decade or so with her elaborate creations, which often include dozens, if not hundreds, of jewels and can cost as much as several million dollars. Born in Hangzhou, China, she now has headquarters at Feng J Joaillerie d’Art in Shanghai, her production workshop is in Hong Kong, and she opened a studio and store on Place Vendôme in Paris in 2016.
She said she applied to TEFAF Maastricht — a selection committee makes the final choices — on the advice of two people who saw her work in 2022 at the FAB Paris art and antiques fair. One was a European collector, whom she declined to name, and the other was Brigitte Péry-Eveno, a jewelry specialist whose paternal great-grandfather created the prestigious Péry et Fils jewelry workshop in 1875.
Ms. Feng herself comes from a family of collectors. Her maternal great-grandfather was Shou Zhu, the court painter to Emperor Guangxu, who ruled China from 1875 to 1908, and her family has been collecting Chinese art for generations, she said. She initially studied furniture and product design at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, then earned a master’s degree in 2012 from the London College of Fashion and studied at the Gemological Institute of America in Shanghai.
She now employs a full-time staff of six at her Hong Kong atelier: two stone-setters; an artisan who specializes in Chinese lacquer; a carver; a person in charge of managing her gemstone library (every gem entering the library is scanned and classified by color and size so it can be easily found during the modeling and final phases, she explained); and an administrative worker. She also collaborates with a family of gem-cutters in China.
The most elaborate pieces she has made for TEFAF are two bracelets with stylized leaf designs. They feature a “floating set,” which involves mounting double rose-cut gems in gold or titanium prongs that, Ms. Feng said, are almost invisible to the human eye and make the jewels appear almost weightless. One bracelet is engraved lapis lazuli and the other, sculpted marble, neither of which she had worked with previously.
Impressionist artists have long inspired her work, but Ms. Feng said she felt the need to branch out for TEFAF and thought about traditional Chinese seals. Often made of jadeite, marble or lapis lazuli, they are used to confirm signatures or mark important documents.
“I was ready to experiment with marble and jade because these stones are very difficult to work with,” she said. “I saw this as a challenge. I think everyone loves marble in sculpture, and in China people like to do marble as a seal. I wanted to develop that kind of story.”
The other pieces headed to TEFAF echo her previous works and signature gem-layering approach. The Blossomed Day and Night necklace has taken more than a year to make, she said, adding that she expects the surface of the finished piece to have 10 or 12 layers of gems. The Toi et Moi, or You and Me, brooch combines opal with double rose-cut tourmaline, aquamarine, chrysoberyl, sapphire, spinel, tsavorite, quartz and white diamond. And a black Australian opal was used for the head of a dragonfly in the Je Suis la Brise, or I Am the Breeze, brooch, with wings made of white diamond, tsavorite, chrysoberyl, tourmaline, tanzanite, sapphire, zircon and topaz.
Her elaborate creations are what prompted TEFAF to invite her, according to Will Korner, the organization’s head of fairs.
“We see her on a trajectory where she will be well-established with other jewelry exhibitors,” he said. “We have artists presenting their handcrafted pieces of jewelry and we have galleries dealing in antique pieces. Feng J represents something for us that we couldn’t say ‘no’ to. Her work creates a dialogue between East and West.” (Other more established jewelry exhibitors are to include Buccellati, A La Vieille Russie and Hemmerle.)
Her approach has caught the eye of many experts and collectors.
“She’s very young to have launched straight into high jewelry, and it’s interesting that she comes from mainland China,” said Vivienne Becker, a jewelry historian, journalist and author in London. “We’ve seen quite a few jewelry makers from Hong Kong and Taiwan, but she is the first from China to work in a totally independent style. She took a deep dive into all her jewelry, including the stone cutting.”
“There is something very romantic about her jewelry — very new and fresh,” Ms. Becker added. “She can be very brave. She found double-rose thin stones and saw something different. She saw the soft colors.
“They’re thin and light, and the way that she sets them, the light can pass through them. It’s all very emotionally charged.”
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